‘You will grant the good woman forgiveness for her hot tears, when she could convey sorrow here in the plight of the child. Let the mortal plight [lit. life torment] pass, so that I may die at once, or may {the peaceful help of women} [= Mary] heal my child.’

Notes: [1] vænni (f. dat. sg.) ‘good’: The word is no longer legible in 721 (‘Væ[…]’). Finnur believed he could read vænust (f. nom. sg.) ‘the best one’, in which case this would be a form of address to Mary. — [3] þó að ‘when’: For þó að lit. ‘although’ with a temporal meaning, see LP: þó 8. — [5] lífsnauð ‘mortal plight’:
Lífstíð ‘lifetime’ (so 713) is syntactically possible but leaves the l. with illicit aðalhending, and the cpd appears to be a lectio facilior. — [7] græði (3rd pers. sg. pres. subj.) ‘may heal’: Skj B and Skald emend to græð (imp. sg.) ‘heal’ and take friðarfull hjálpin fljóða ‘peaceful help of women’ (ll. 7-8) as an apostrophe to Mary. That translation is also given by Wrightson, although she retains the subj. form of the verb.